>> And for the first year probably won't do that. But again, when I took our first and second year teachers over to Ottawa and we went to those elected based classes, those kids were talking about, man, I want to complete this class. and not just like complete it with a grade but actually get the certificate that says I've gone through [clears throat] and completed this pathway and that school is very impressive that these kids have been trained on these things and they actually understand hey [clears throat] this is what this means if I actually complete this class so offering this small change would give our kids more opportunities and not just a business pathway but our foods pathways as well so it's our family consumer science so it's offering our kids more opportunities to complete higher level classes and then it's going to be our job at the high school to see which ones are those they are taking and then how can we start getting more kids to actually complete that pathway um offering the pathway and not completing it.
Any opposed? Same sign. Motion passes. 6. Item number 12, the football practice field water field. >> Okay, so we do have the board approved sprinkler system installed at the hel practice field for the football team. We do have the old water rail that's still working in some capacity. The golf course is interested in that water rail. Um, I would recommend us having a discussion on donating that water rail to the golf course or if you guys know if there's another entity that we want to reach out to. uh right now it's just going to sit over to the side and we know at this point. So um just want to kind of open that discussion because they are interested in that water and I don't know what it's I don't have a clue what it's worth guys. It's been there for a while. We've had to repair it quite a few times the past few years.
So to counter that um we've put together an entirely compliant uh storm water design and that ultimately leads to a small uh infiltration basin that you can barely make out in the affordable housing site and a larger uh subsurface infiltration basin uh that'll be located adjacent to the parking bank. One thing I wanted to mention very quickly from the last plan that I did not mention. Um, my parking numbers for the total of 56 spaces in this area does not include the number of spaces that are at the affordable housing site. The affordable housing site will have its own independent 11 spaces which includes its own ADA space. Um, so moving on, this is the first of three phasing plans. Obviously, one of the things that comes up um with a project such as this is we're going to have to construct a building while maintaining the existing municipal building.
We had prizes for the best essays. Um we had a Native American jiu-jitsu group called the Res. They came down from Tucson and they did a demonstration with some of the students in the gym and they showed them self-defense skills and things like that and the students were very um excited and they participated. We also had early American schools week that is new but not and some students did participate but not all the students did but because it was the first time that we did it I expected that we would not have gotten the baby participation that we hoped. So we're hoping that moving forward when we have our daily American straight week more of the students will participate and um we will have a much more wholesome event at that particular week. Um in December we have our Christmas celebration and in and we also gave out awards for academic achievement and for um attendance.
Um the auditor general releases a po report every year for all regular geographically bound school districts. So not charter schools. um talking about how much money what percent of the operating budget is spent where and a couple of things that I wanted to um chat about that were as we have it's the same everywhere right as you have declining student enrollment you inevitably um need fewer teachers but you still need a principal you still need custodians you still need bus drivers so it inevitably the the teeter totters tipped bit because they don't define classroom spent. They don't include all expenses that go in the classroom in the classroom spending report. It's very narrowly defined. So, it took us forever just to to get them to be willing to count pair of professionals who provide instruction in the classroom. So, it's a little bit misleading when you think in terms of how much gets spent on a classroom.
Next item on the agenda. Oh, is there any discussion? I'm so sorry. I forgot about that part. No discussion. Okay. I should have I meant to ask that beforehand. I'll be better.
Obviously cold air is getting in in the winter. Um hot air is getting in in the summer. it's affecting your your um energy performance as well. Uh some light levels, we we came in and replaced one for one light fixtures a number of years ago. We didn't add any new light fixtures as part of that project. So, some spaces still are underlit for for the activities that they are. We look for more foot candles, more lighting in those spaces. Going around the building, there's a number of places where the brick masonry is uh damaged or failing. Um the mortar joints are are cracked, starting to pop out. Um some of the bricks are coming loose. Dumpsters uh at the rear of the building. Um ideally we'd like to see those in an enclosure just so public can't get in and find a free dumpster uh to throw mattresses and things in.
So ladies, if you want to talk, we've got a little bit longer time period for this, up to 30 minutes to talk about this uh the process a little bit and maybe your um your thoughts on how we're doing on this process as well. So thank you for sharing this tonight. >> I get to go first this time. First of all, it's not on a slide, but I would like to thank Lauren. She has been fearless in looking at this data. I've had a number of partners in elementary um but none of them have stepped up to the plate and said how can we make real change and look at our data the way Lauren has and the model that she's following is the model that secretary has been using for a little bit and I I could not tell you how proud I am of her and how happy I am that she's doing this really hard work because it's easy to say we love all of our kids and we love each other and hug each other and walk away and not make any real changes.
And so we taught that if we had the green sunglasses on that we were open, right? We'd love to greet you. But if we did not have them on and they saw us, we like acted it out, right? How we would be walking if someone needed our help and um that we this is how we taught our wish well and um just that we see someone struggling instead of judging like oh my goodness what are they doing right? It's changing the mindset to like oh they are really struggling they must need help and we're going to wish Mrs. Pearson, Mrs. Hayden well as they go and help them as well as the student who is struggling. So, um, we also were shifting a little bit away from PBIS, which, um, is a great program, but it also is a rewardsbased program. And so, conscious discipline is not a program.
Now, I do have to mention that this is Mi Brawlers and in fact the entire team's last dog. Oh, and that last dog is gone. It looks like we have won the first round of this match. So, congratulations to Izzy. Heck yeah. >> All right. So, so we only use two of our players, which means which means that um which means there there are three other players that um just Yep. There are four other players actually. And there are four other players that have yet to play. So, expect to see some more expect to see some more characters unless they decide to go with the same characters again cuz considering the last round, it wouldn't be the worst option considering how that went. All righty. So now the enemy team has the opportunity to counterpick a stage. So if they want a stage with a different layout that would benefit them, they can totally do that.
>> Yes. Um, at a school committee meeting, it seemed that there wanted to be more research, more information put forth before that's something that the school committee would decide to do. Um, so at this point in this presentation, we have not included that. Um, but that will be a further conversation with school committee. >> Okay. Uh the next would be in the um upcoming year with the are you going to be able to offer the opportunity for um fifth graders to go up to the new um Chestnut Hill Academy? Will there be an an option for school of choice in >> um so that is a question I cannot answer at this time. >> I think that's a great conversation we'd have to have with school committee. I just I'm throwing it out because it's a school committee meeting. So, >> yeah. Oh, yeah. So, if anybody wants to chime in, feel free.
You know, like I said, looks good on a piece of paper, but we didn't have a lot of completers because >> they're all business essentials wasn't offered at the at the eighth grade level. So you have about you have about a third of each graduating class are pathway completers which is >> a good amount for those who are not >> collegebound. You know one thing we heard from the alumni is that they enjoyed the pathways but sometimes what it taught them the most is what they didn't want to do. >> That's what I was going to ask many of them didn't complete change their mind on like hey this isn't really what I want. Yeah, but doing that introductory class in 83 gives them the opportunity to change their mind and get into a different one if that's >> it can't hurt, >> right? >> This it can't hurt.
Josh, you said that came from Bush. Is there an entity over there that would want that? No. >> I think it would be good. I'll move to approve the donation. >> Second the motion by Dalton and a second by Allison. I Yeah, I would just say is since we're not going to use it and I don't want it to just deteriorate because then somebody can use it. Any other questions or comments?
And the layout that you see um was designed to do exactly that where we're going to be able to construct the new building while the existing building remains. So, the green that you see up here is the parking that's intended primarily for municipal staff as well as any visitors. There's a small bank of uh stacked parking intended for the municipal staff as well as a slew of um I believe the number is either 14 or 15 spaces intended for those visiting the municipal building uh during this construction phase. The area within the red is designated exclusively for the construction effort. Um so that'll be fenced off, you know, locked, gated, the whole nine. Um the second phase is after this building has been constructed and now is in place. You have the uh existing municipal building. All of the materials and files and everything have been moved out of that building and into the new municipal building.
So the students who got proficiency and highly proficient grades for the benchmark that their certificates as well as those who had perfect attendance, good attendance or excellent attendance. We had those um during our Christmas bunch celebration. So these are just some pictures from the essay competition. First place was Marlin Ruiz from the 10th grade. Second place was Deon from the 12th grade and third place was Marcia from the fourth grade. This was our the student the jiujitsu group was and they came out. So we got to they got to demonstrate. They took pictures. The students participated. they have a good time and that was they and the the group is very willing to return next um for American month so that they can also give us some more demonstrations and make it a great um event for our Christmas brunch. We used the learning center by the college school because we needed the space and we had a large number of children and their families that turned out.
Um, like for example, plant operations is, you know, everything that takes to run the school. But you figure lights, desks, custodial services, those can all be figured out by a classroom, but they don't allow those expenditures to count as classroom level expenses. I would argue that you need a desk, that you need heat, that you need lights of a classroom, but that's not how they see it. Um and then we also had um I wanted to note that statewide um instructional spending is down, classroom spending is down overall. It's because of the decline in student enrollment statewide. Um and then another thing impacts it as well. It's called the teacher experience index. When we have teachers who are have lots of years experience, then of course they make more money, so it's a higher percent. Um, like this year, you've known from our last few board packets, we have lots of retirees.
Uh the next item on the agenda is reports. Uh we will have a report on strategic goal number one related to our high ability program. Hello. Just wanted to give you a little bit of an update on high ability. So, I also wear the hat of the data coordinator. So, I threw in some data in there, too, because anytime I can get in front of you, I want to put some data in front of you as well. So, when we first look at who we identify for high ability in Avon Community Schools, um we identify around 13.8% of our student population. The DOE recommends that we um identify anywhere from 12 to 15%. So we are right now in that sweet spot of around 13.8% which is around 1,500 students. And you can see there are three different ways for us to identify students in Avon community schools.
And then uh as Tony alluded, there's still a number of restrooms in the building that aren't ADA compliant. I'll let Pete talk a little bit about the HAC systems in the high school. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Martin. Okay. So, my job's easy, especially for the first three buildings because you guys have done a great job on the learning environment, keeping everybody comfortable in the in the buildings. You guys have done a great job. So, boilers, chiller, uh there's two chillers and uh the boilers from 2011 project. We didn't do those, but uh they're still in good shape. chillers have had some reliability issues. You may need to do some planning on those, but uh and we put the water heaters in. Those are the main the main uh features. Here's a rooftop view of your high school. So, green is new, red is the older ones.
It's really hard to look in the mirror and say, "I need to lose 10 pounds." And actually lose the 10 pounds. She got him to look in the mirror the other day. And I'm really proud of her. That's that's hard work to do. Thank you, Lord. All right, Cindy, we ready? So, my job is to teach a little bit of history, which is what I do anyway, right? That's my favorite thing in the world. And Chuck didn't steal all my thunder, so I got a little bit of it left. So the state of Indiana went through a big bunch of changes in 22 23 school year. Um the laws changed dramatically. The department of education changed their goals dramatically and I think we were uniquely set up to to take advantage of some of those things. So the first thing that they did was they changed the standards which then caused changing of curriculum maps, instructional tools, and pacing of the content.
It's a mind set, a mind shift. Um, but it's kind of doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Um, intrinsically, um, motivating our kids, um, to do the right thing. So, at our um complication celebrations, we did still do um our animal accolades, which um is is a personal a uh award for um having I don't want to say good behavior, but um being like responsible, respectful, safe, showing these um these acts at school. But then at the our convocation, instead of individually recognizing, we would do it as a group. we would say, you know, in October, our school family earned 107 accolades. Wow, we did it. And then we were all in it together. It wasn't singling or anybody out for doing it or leaving anybody out for not quite making it there yet. Okay. Um then our morning PDS we started doing um more with our staff um as well.